Sweeney Todd, Minus (blank)
by Katkee
Summary: A series of one-shots, telling the tale of Sweeney Todd…if one character didn't exist. So far featuring (or rather, not featuring): Anthony, Toby, Johanna, the Beadle. More like conjectures/rants than actual stories, but enjoy!
1. Anthony

Exactly what it says in the summary. Reviews are appreciated!

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><p>Without Anthony, Sweeney Todd would never have returned to London. But let's say someone else picked him up. No Place Like London never happens, but Sweeney Todd is back.<p>

Life goes on. He meets Mrs Lovett and gets his razors back.

Johanna sings to the birds, but without the strange boy singing outside her window, she is left without hope. Or Hope.

We don't learn how evil the judge is until later, but I think we can all agree to live with that.

Toby presents the elixir, the shave-off occurs, and the Beadle promises to come.

Sweeney Todd is impatient and Mrs Lovett tells him to wait. Nobody bursts in to tell him of Johanna.

Soon, Pirelli and Toby come for a visit. Pirelli (or Davie) dies.

Only a few minutes later, the judge (who we have now learned is evil) enters. They sing. When nobody bursts in yelling about Johanna (who is growing lonely and desperate), Sweeney kills Turpin in a flash of silver, a spray of blood.

A couple of hours later, the Beadle comes to see why the judge has not returned. Sweeney, brushing away his concerns with a few lies, lures him into the barber chair.

Vengeance.

The pair dead, and somehow shoved into the trunk alongside Pirelli, Sweeney sets off to the judge's house to fetch Johanna and explain. Outside the house, a very persistent beggar woman demands his attention…

Mrs Lovett is distraught by Lucy's return, but pretends she's not and continues with her work.

The dead bodies in the trunk disappear without Sweeney touching them. Mrs Lovett's pies increase in quality for a few days.

Toby and Mrs Lovett keep the pie shop running while the Barkers restart their happy life upstairs.

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><p>So, would have been better without Anthony. Although the best songs, Epiphany and A Little Priest, don't happen. Neither do all the 'Johanna's.<p> 


	2. Toby

Sweeney Todd returns to London, learns some truly disturbing things about its pies, etc.

Pirelli announces his miracle elixir himself in an extremely annoying Italian accent. Sweeney announces that it's piss with ink and the contest commences.

All proceeds the same way for a while, Sweeny deciding he'll kill everyone and Mrs Lovett deciding to bake them into pies. She has to find someone else to sing about them to everyone going by, though.

(But I bet no matter how much the song changes, the customers _still_ get no lines in the movie version.)

Not While I'm Around never happens. No one is locked in the bakehouse. The Beadle dies.

Because he wasn't looking for Toby, Sweeney meets Johanna when Anthony brings her to the shop. He tells them to go down and hide in the pie shop until the coach comes.

The beggar woman dies, then the judge. But because Toby isn't in the bakehouse, Mrs Lovett isn't down there. Nobody screams when the judge is revealed to still be alive.

Later, Mrs Lovett goes down and, recognizing Lucy, takes great delight in serving those pies to customers.

Sweeney Todd got his revenge and met his daughter, but he never realized his wife had been alive the whole time. Still unsatisfied with the world, he murders more and more people until the police, who probably should have noticed something earlier, start to suspect something is up with that barbershop.

He and Mrs Lovett have enough money saved to flee the country. They go to the mainland and live by the sea.

And, eventually, they marry.

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><p>Sweenet fans may be starting to dislike Toby about now. Without him, Mrs Lovett gets her happy ending.<p>

I'm pretty sure the endings only get sadder from here, so if you like happy endings, well, what are you doing in this fandom?


	3. Johanna

We never see Anthony again after No Place Like London. Frustrated with the lack of inaccessible blondes singing in windows, he goes off to rescue Rapunzel. But that's another musical.

Poor Thing is edited, of course, because there was no 'year old kid.' But Sweeney still has plenty of reason to want revenge on Turpin.

Judge Turpin isn't quite so creepy. He still sentences a kid to death, though, so make of that what you will.

However, without Johanna to motivate him, he never comes for a shave.

The Beadle comes by the end of the week, as promised, and is quickly dispatched. The judge never figures out what happened to him, and, honestly, doesn't really care much.

Sweeney waits and waits for the judge to come, getting frustrated as months pass with no sign of him. He doesn't start murdering random people, but he comes close.

Eventually, he explodes with impatience and storms to the judge's house, heedless of Mrs Lovett's warnings. He bursts in and murders the judge then and there.

Turpin's screams bring the police, though, and it's not hard for them to condemn Sweeney. It doesn't help his case when someone recognizes him as Benjamin Barker.

Sweeney Todd is hung. Mrs Lovett's pies don't ever get any better, but Toby tries his best to help her. Lucy dies on the streets a couple of years later, alone and unloved.

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><p>Warned you. We're back to more Sweeney Todd-like endings, with 5 of the now 8 characters ending up dead. And who knows what happens to Anthony?<p> 


	4. Beadle

Judge Turpin has to get someone else to do a lot of his dirty work, from asking Lucy to his house to taking Johanna to the asylum, but there's no lack of unsavory characters in London, so that's not an issue.

Sweeney Todd still returns and samples some amazing pie, Johanna still sings to birds, Anthony still gets tossed out of a house (although he isn't beaten quite so much), Pirelli still hits a really high note.

But without the Beadle, some other random person judges the contest. Sweeney gets free advertising anyway but nobody promises to come to his shop.

Pirelli shows up, gets hit by a teapot, and is shoved into a trunk.

The judge has still decided to marry Johanna. He doesn't understand her reluctance, though, and wanders until he sees Sweeney's shop. He decides to ask for a shave.

Anthony still bursts in at exactly the wrong moment (but I suppose a few seconds later would have been worse) and ruins Sweeney's chances of killing the judge.

A few unchanged songs later, Anthony is assuring Johanna that he'll return with the coach in less than half an hour. The Beadle has never come and was never killed.

Because of that, the beggar woman doesn't have any reason to go up to the barbershop. She stays on the streets, asking random strangers how they'd like a little muff, dear, a little jig, dear, a little bounce around the bush – (sorry, got carried away there).

Anyway, Johanna doesn't have to hide. Sweeney gets to meet his daughter. After explaining their relation, Sweeney realizes that the judge will soon be arriving. Unfortunately, he realizes this when the judge calls, "Mr Todd!" from outside, so he has no time to send Johanna downstairs. She hides in the trunk at his suggestion.

Sweeney doesn't really want to murder Turpin in front of his daughter, but his bloodthirsty side kicks in and he gleefully kills him.

Shocked, Johanna sits trembling in the trunk as Sweeney sings to his razors. Mrs Lovett screams from downstairs and he rushes out of the room to see what's wrong.

When Anthony returns, he finds Johanna sobbing in the trunk. She's traumatized for life and is half mad with shock and grief. For whom, she's not sure.

Down in the bakehouse, Turpin rolls over and finally dies. Sweeney comes in to see what's happened. Mrs Lovett explains hurriedly.

They end up dancing together, because why not? Sweeney is happy – he's accomplished everything he's tried to and has no idea either that his wife is alive or that he's scarred his daughter for life. Mrs Lovett is glad that it's finally over and brings up the question of them living by the sea.

Sweeney is so happy he accepts.

Toby emerges from the shadows, chattering endlessly away to himself. He's half mad, like Johanna, mostly due to the shock of finding out what is in the pies. (Spoiler: it's dead people.)

Sweeney suggests, and Mrs Lovett reluctantly agrees, that he should go to Fogg's Asylum.

They send him there. On their way out of London, they both ignore the irritating beggar women yelling, "Mischief!" at them.

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><p>Wow, that's different than I thought it would be. Another happy ending for Mrs Lovett, but there are a few more crazy characters. Twisted, yes. Happy, maybe. There's Sweeney Todd for you.<p> 


End file.
